Managing a Successful Art Career – Dan Anthony

Dan Anthony is a sculptor and has been the business manager for Glenna Goodacre since 1987. After 30 years working together, Glenna Goodacre is retiring. She is known for her work designing the Sacagawea impression on dollar coins, sculpting the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall, and the Irish Famine Memorial at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. Dan Anthony took an hour to tell us about Glenna’s retirement, some important upcoming events, and what he is planning to do next. Her final piece before retirement was created in collaboration with the Clark Hulings Fund, the bas-relief Helping to Push. Topics Include:

Bust of Jack Jonas Jr. by Dan Anthony

Glenna Goodacre’s Retirement:

“Glenna wants to wrap things up and to focus on being a grandmother, wife, and friend…. We started an archive project.”

“We closed down a rental studio we had. We gave away the clay and the tools, the sculpture stands, equipment, Glenna’s sculpture and art books. We gave those last October to the New Mexico School for the Arts, which is an arts-based high school headquartered here in Santa Fe.”

“Sculpture is very physical and it’s very demanding, and so as sculptors age they really do kind of wind down a bit.”

The significance of breaking all of Glenna Goodacre’s molds.

Helping to Push Bas-Relief:

A collaboration between Glenna Goodacre and Clark Hulings, post-mortem.

“Glenna adored Clark. They were very, very close friends. She met him, we’re guessing, in the early ‘70s in Texas. He was having an exhibition there. She was a fan of his already and went to meet him, and he was of course very gracious, and helpful, and eloquent, and they became fast friends.”

“After Clark’s death, Elizabeth Hulings wanted Glenna to be involved in the Clark Hulings Fund somehow. Glenna couldn’t travel anymore, so she couldn’t be on the board, but they hit upon this idea of trying to create a bas-relief from one of Clark’s drawings.”

“Glenna and I agreed to do that [create a bas-relief] before we actually saw the drawing we were going to get. Then, Elizabeth sent out this drawing of the donkeys Helping to Push, which was from one of Clark’s trips to Egypt.”

“In the relief, it’s unusual in that there are a lot of lines; Clark used a lot of lines in his paintings. You’ll see lines in this that I think give it a unique quality. I think we succeeded in channeling Clark Hulings into the bas-relief.”

Scottsdale Art Auction Presents Glenna Goodacre:

“It’s a retrospective exhibition of Glenna’s work, from her very first piece to almost the last. Clark’s relief is the last thing, but there’s a very late piece in there, so it’s a big retrospective exhibition. It’s wrapping up the career of one of America’s favorite sculptors.”

“After downsizing, Glenna still had a big personal collection of her own work, and we had a significant inventory of larger works that were scattered around the country.”

“Moving all of that art into one spot in Scottsdale took months. We still have one sculpture and a two-dimensional work to get out there: 114 lots in total.”

Find out how you can participate in Glenna’s auction on April 6, 2017.

What is a Business Manager?

“Basically, it’s someone who can do the money work and the paperwork while the artist is making artwork.”

“As an artist, you need to be as prolific as you can because you will need a body of work to solidify your situation.”

“The studio work is really important, as is the business work. The promotion,keeping track of things, and the financial stuff is important also.”

“While I was working with her, we had two, three million dollar years. That means that the galleries sold four and a half million dollars’ worth of work.”

“It’s good to have a target and something to shoot for, and if you’re in a professional setting and you’re setting goals, you can’t fail.”

Parallel careers:

“I wish I would have had time to do more of my own projects, but now I can do more of those.”

“Before I worked for Glenna, I was foundry director at Shidoni Foundry.”

“I mapped out this business plan for Glenna in 1987; then, I jumped in and started helping her develop proposals for public sculptures.”

“I quit the job at Shidoni, and I thought help her for a while and then move on’, and then we got all of these projects. We decided we would work as hard as we could for as long as we could and then just get out, but we didn’t think it would be so long. We didn’t think it’d be 30 years.”

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About Daniel DiGriz

Daniel DiGriz is CHF's Director of Education & Marketing, co-founder of management consulting firm Free Agent Source Inc., and Digital Ecologist® at MadPipe which helps organizations connect with their audiences by framing educational programs and marketing with a powerful company story. His background in Fortune 500 life is in sales, marketing, instructional design, and corporate training. Daniel is a corporate storyteller who hosts podcasts, speaks at conferences, and is a contributor to Forbes.

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About Daniel DiGriz

Daniel DiGriz is CHF's Director of Education & Marketing, co-founder of management consulting firm Free Agent Source Inc., and Digital Ecologist® at MadPipe which helps organizations connect with their audiences by framing educational programs and marketing with a powerful company story. His background in Fortune 500 life is in sales, marketing, instructional design, and corporate training. Daniel is a corporate storyteller who hosts podcasts, speaks at conferences, and is a contributor to Forbes.